Thursday, April 22, 2010

First summerday in Iceland

Icelanders celebrate their first summer day today or "sumardagurinn fyrsti." Has nothing to do with the weather but with our old calendar, it is the first day in the summer month Harpa. It is usually the first Thursday after the 18th April.

Sumardagurinn fyrsti is a holiday in Iceland and used to be dedicated to young women, where young men would say which one they liked and later known as children day, where children could go to different towns. There is always some celebration and festival on this day, especially for children, a play, music acts, sport, etc. People also used to give presents on this day, in fact it was before they started giving christmas presents. 

My family would celebrate this day by going to the neighbourhood festival or we would sleep in and then play sports in our backyard. Man i miss my old backyard, we used to have a swing, football net, basketball ring and a hot tub. It was perfect for the summer time. We would invite our friends and play. So much fun. I would love to go back.


I like this holiday. To celebrate the coming of summer. In Iceland it´s dark all the time except for a couple of hours and the opposite in the summer time so you can imagine that Icelanders welcome summertime, the sun, with a bang.




Gleðilegan sumardaginn fyrsta

Monday, April 19, 2010

Iceland in the news

Iceland is on the front page of every newspaper in the world, not for the economy but for our nature. Airports across Europe have been shut down because of the ash that came from our volcano at Eyjafjallajökull.

I get that people are annoyed at this. We want to get places and we´re not used to wait. Unfortunately nature has other plans.... 

Nature has a mind of its own. Nature doesn´t care about flight schedules and lost money.

I think people should just enjoy the time they´re stuck somewhere instead of complaining. There´s nothing they can do so why not enjoy it.

Better yet, people should be grateful that airlines are waiting it out instead of flying anyway and end up killing people...and for what. This is a security issue. 

A lot of people have asked me if my family is ok, which i find so nice. My family is fine, Eyjafjallajökull is in the south of the country while Reykjavik is southwest so it´s far away.

But for those people stuck, let´s hope airports open soon.

Until then, enjoy the time and this scene from The Daily Show....

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Volcanolypse 2010
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Gotta love the irony.....

Britain: WTF Iceland?!? Why did you send us volcanic ash ? Our airspace has shut down. 

Iceland: What ? It's what you asked for isn't it ? 

Britain: NO! Cash! Cash you dyslexic fuck. CASH!

Iceland: whoooops.. There is no C in the Icelandic alphabet, so when you
ask for Cash, all you get is Ash...

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Vienna is colder than Reykjavik

Spring has arrived here in Vienna, after months of snow. It feels like spring in Iceland, i´m still waiting for the barbeque smell (i used to live in a suburb in iceland so more there than the city of vienna).
But it´s still cold.

When people hear I´m from Iceland, they say "wow it must be cold there." I understand that. The name says it....ICE-land, the land of Ice. Or as Zeppelin sang in the Immigrant Song : "We come from the land of the ice and snow, From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow."

The Americans say proudly say what they know about it: "Iceland is green and Greenland is ice." I would love to know where they learn that but it´s true. Fantastic article about the history of these countries names: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1965/shouldnt-greenland-be-known-as-iceland-and-vice-versa

Here is my answer that might surprise people: "Vienna is colder than Reykjavik"

In Iceland it´s because of it´s wind. If there is no wind, snow or rain it´s good. No humidity.
In Vienna, however,  it can look like the perfect weather, sunny and no wind, rain or snow, yet -15 degrees and freezing. I find that strange. Plus it goes from 10 to 0 in one day. BRRRRR....

Of course the summers in Austria are way warmer, but sweaty heat, which i don´t like.  You have to go to Iceland in July to understand what hot is in Iceland and it´s nice hot, not sweaty....just right.

In Iceland we have a saying "if you don´t like the weather, wait 5 min" and i thought it only applied to Iceland but my god, here in Vienna i never know what type of weather it´s going to be. Like the picture below. All of a sudden...pouring rain.

The Viennese love to complain about the weather. It´s their hobby. 

In Iceland we have warm houses/apartments. We use geothermal heating (heat from the ground) to heat our houses, so it´s cheaper to warm our houses. It´s so expensive here in Vienna and waste of heating because the ceilings are so high in the older buildings that its like burning money. So warm houses in Iceland contribute to us staying warm in the wintertime.

So when I (or any Icelander) say
"I´m cold,"

i´m hoping you dear readers won´t say what people say now
"but you´re from Iceland".

..that just shows you don´t know anything about Iceland.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Icelandic vs. Austrian Easter

 
 Icelandic : The big thing in Iceland is the chocolate egg, which is filled with Icelandic candy and has a saying like "the apple doesn´t fall far from the tree" with a bird (or a figure like smurf) on top. Only tradition my family had at Easter was to hide the egg and make us find it.  Some people go to church but my family doesn´t. The only time I went to church at that time was for my confirmation.  This holiday is pretty much an excuse to eat tons of chocolate with your family and enjoy your time off.

A holiday spent eating chocolate, gotta love that, especially while studying for your exams. 

 

Austrian: The big thing at Easter is the hunt is for easter eggs, which are painted on the day before Easter and then hidden in the backyard for kids to find. Then the whole family gathers and eats a special easter meal, chocolate rabbits and some even give presents. They also have easter markets, where they sell easter products and have an easter egg hunt for the kids. My favourite is Schönbrunn.


My mom was kind enough to send me and my boyfriend two icelandic chocolate egg, so thanks to her  I think I have the best of both worlds,  the chocolate eggs from Iceland and then  the easter markets, chocolate rabbits and other eater traditions in Vienna, Austria. 

That´s the good thing about being an expat, different traditions collide. 
And who can say no to all this chocolate :P

Saturday, April 03, 2010